Thousands of Israelis have lined the route of a funeral procession for two small children and their mother who were held hostage and killed in captivity in Gaza.
The national outpouring of grief for Ariel, Kfir and Shiri Bibas came amid reports that a deal had been reached to resume the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, with the handover of more bodies of hostages in return for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The bodies of the Bibases were handed over last week by Hamas, who claimed they had been killed by airstrikes. An Israeli autopsy report ruled the children had been murdered by their captors and then mutilated to simulate wounds from bombing.
The Bibas funeral was held in the town of Tzohar, near the border with Gaza and the kibbutz of Nir Oz, where the family lived. The ceremony was private but mourners lined the road from the central city of Rishon LeZion holding Israeli flags and yellow banners, symbol of the hostage families and supporters, to watch the funeral cortege go by.
The children and their mother were to be buried alongside Shiri’s parents, who were killed in the Hamas attack on Nir Oz and other Israeli communities on 7 October 2023. Her husband and the boys’ father, Yarden, had also been taken hostage in the Hamas attack, but was released under the ceasefire deal earlier this month, and discovered only then that his family had been killed.
The Bibas family have denounced Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his government for making public graphic details of the two boys’ deaths. “This is outright abuse of a family that has already been enduring hell for 16 months,” Ofri Bibas, Yarden’s sister, said.
Describing the funeral procession on Wednesday, she said. “Through the car window, I see a broken country; we won’t recover until the last hostage returns home.”
In her eulogy at the funeral, Ofri was bitterly critical of the Netanyahu government for prioritising the destruction of Hamas over an earlier negotiated hostage release. “Our disaster as a people and as a family should not have happened, and it must not, must not happen again,” she said. “They could have saved you and preferred revenge.”
There had been fears that the ceasefire might collapse at the weekend when Hamas released six Israeli hostages, but Netanyahu’s security cabinet delayed the release of 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees who were due to be freed in exchange, arguing Hamas had violated the terms of the deal by staging propaganda ceremonies each time hostages were handed over. In response, Hamas said it would break off mediation talks and cancelled the scheduled handover of the bodies of four hostages on Thursday.
A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that there would be no public ceremony in the latest exchange.
Israeli officials confirmed to reporters overnight earlier Egyptian press reports saying a deal had been done to exchange the bodies for the Palestinian prisoners, but added that the Palestinians would be transferred in batches.
